The First Time He Touched Her
by Eady of Old
Summary: "I promise, Mister Bates. I believe in your innocence, and I won't rest until you are free," Anna Smith said, addressing him with all the ideological innocence of a new solicitor.


**The First Time He Touched Her**

 **Summary:** "I promise, Mister Bates. I believe in your innocence, and I won't rest until you are free," Anna Smith said, addressing him with all the ideological innocence of a new solicitor.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Downton Abbey. I am also not terribly familiar with the British legal system, but with some research help from a friend, I did my best.

 **A/N: This is my entry for the Secret Santa Exchange, written for a-lady-to-me, who requested a fanfic, possibly a modern AU. Thank you for not requesting fluff, as fluff is not my specialty. But I hope you like it anyway, and I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.**

* * *

 _She was waiting for him outside the prison gate._

 _Bates knew she would be there, of course, because she had promised. And Anna never forgot her promises._

* * *

"I promise, Mister Bates. I believe in your innocence, and I won't rest until you are free."

She had addressed him with all the ideological innocence of a new solicitor just finished with her legal practice course, so fresh that he could almost hear her squeak when she entered the visiting room. She accompanied his appeals solicitor, a man hired for him by his old friend Robert Crawley after his prior attorney lost at trial. Mister Murray was competent and experienced, and he worked for an excellent firm. But he lacked what young Anna had in spades - passion.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Miss Smith," Murray cautioned. "We still have a long road, and the appeal process is anything but certain. I've already filed the necessary paperwork to take the case to a higher court..."

The man took a breath and then looked to Anna to explain how they would have to go about matters. She took over quickly, speaking with confidence and professionalism while John listened to her with rapt attention. As part of her training with the firm, she would work on his case under Murray's supervision, but she already seemed very knowledgeable.

"We will review the transcripts and exhibits from the trial to see if we can find anything which would be grounds to overturn the verdict," she said.

Bates swallowed tightly before asking, "And then what?"

"And then we seek a new trial."

With a sigh, he questioned, "But even so, even if you manage that, what chance is there it would go any differently than before?"

Murray gave him a sympathetic smile. "One thing at a time, Mister Bates. One thing at a time."

* * *

 _They returned to him the suit he wore at trial when releasing him from prison, and it fit oddly after he had spent eighteen months in the place. The light wool fabric wasn't quite enough to block out the winter wind, and he knew he would need to buy himself a new overcoat before long. However, the stick in his right hand was both familiar and more than a comfort. He could have wept with relief as he used it for support, the first time in a year and a half._

 _In prison, walking sticks were prohibited as they could too easily be used as weapons. They would only afford him a chair for mobility if he applied for it. But Bates had no wish to appear weak in front of the other prisoners. He'd suffered through too much of that as it was. While he knew the months of walking on his bad knee had likely done lasting damage, for one brief moment, he did not think about that. He focused instead on the blessed return to normalcy he suddenly had in his hand._

* * *

"I'm surprised they gave you a whole life order," Anna mused, looking through his case file across the table from him.

The cold, institutional nature of the room seemed to phase her little. But Bates could hardly picture her in the prison, not when she seemed more suited to the outside - her hair the color of sunshine and her skin likewise radiating warmth. Even her eyes were like reflections of the sky on a clear day, and Bates could only liken her appearance in the prison to a captured bird.

A very industrious bird, however.

"And your lawyer barely presented any evidence at trial, only character witnesses at your sentencing. Even so, you received no possibility of parole."

He remembered vividly when the judge had read the sentence, knew even as it was pronounced that he would never see the outside of a barred cage again. And he would stay locked away for a crime he had not committed.

Taking a deep breath, he explained, "They felt I killed Vera for personal gain, to keep the money she would have received during the divorce."

"The divorce was contentious?"

"Yes," he acknowledged. "And it did not help that I had a prior conviction for theft."

Anna nodded, obviously having read such information already in his file. But she asked him the questions anyway, obviously keen to hear his side of matters. They discussed Vera for a long while, and Bates did his best to be honest with her about his wife.

"She felt I had ruined her life. And I suppose, in a way I did."

The injury he sustained during a tour in Afghanistan had ended his military career, leading to a subsequent occupation of nearly full time drunkenness. Of course, Vera had not encouraged sobriety, nor had she engaged in it much herself, but Bates could hardly fault her.

"I was a hard man to live with, back then," he explained. "But I would have thought she'd be keen to be rid of me, especially after I went to prison for the theft."

Anna nodded wordlessly, and he wondered if she had already read between the lines on his prior conviction. Due to the nature of the crime, he had been convicted in a military court which stripped him of what remained of his prior honors, something Bates regretted almost as much as the two years he spent in prison for the crime. But that time period had given him a chance at introspection, to get his life back together and remind himself that he did still have a life.

Unfortunately, that was no longer true. His life was over now.

"Whatever happened between you and she back then, you don't deserve to be punished for a crime you didn't commit," Anna declared. Her eyes locked with his, and more communicated between them in that moment than ever could be spoken aloud.

Perhaps he fell a little in love with her then.

* * *

 _Leaving the prison felt surreal. Bates could not pinpoint precisely when he accepted that he would die behind bars, but the elation and confusion which upset his belief left him light headed. It was not a pleasant sensation, but he reveled in it regardless because it was a_ new _sensation, just like viewing the landscape beyond the prison fences. The leafless trees in the grips of a cold winter were the same ones he'd witnessed during his few hours in the yard, but somehow they seemed brighter and more alive when viewed through free eyes._

* * *

The appeal took months.

Anna worked on his case tirelessly, perhaps to the exclusion of other cases on her workload and even her own private life. He found that he worried about her more and more. When she did visit him to apprise him of the status of his appeal and the direction of the arguments she and Murray would argue in to the Court of Appeals, he saw dark shadows under her eyes as though she did not get enough sleep.

"She takes your case too personally," Murray mentioned on one of his few trips to the prison without Anna. "I have half a mind to reassign your case to someone else."

No one else would give Bates' case more attention than Anna, and they both knew it. She seemed nearly obsessed with it, so caught up in her belief of his innocence. In a way, he hoped that Murray would do precisely what he suggested, for Anna's sake. But a more selfish part of him wanted to keep Anna, not just because she was his best hope for eventual freedom, but because he enjoyed her visits.

He loved her humor and the way her off-handed comments would tease him without making him feel ridiculous. And her mind was an extraordinary thing, brilliant and bright and full of wonder. She could fend off the darkness with her very presence.

* * *

 _He knew she would be there even before he saw her. She'd mentioned it when she called with the news of his release. But seeing her in the daylight for the first time was, quite simply, incredible._

 _Anna looked the same as she did whenever she visited, blonde hair pulled back in a modest style, gray suit coat and professional skirt to match. But today she wore a smile - a beaming grin which transformed her casual good looks into overwhelming beauty. He could not take his eyes from her._

* * *

The appeal failed.

Anna brought him word in person, her face showing that she was as downcast as his own emotions on the subject.

"We knew it was a long shot," he said quietly.

She sounded near the verge of tears as she responded, "But I had real hope."

Her despair pulled at him, making his own disappointment that much harder to bear. "Anna, you shouldn't be so upset by this," he told her. "It is no reflection on you or your work. You... did your best, and I can never thank you enough."

"But you don't deserve to be here."

The fact that she believed him innocent so adamantly still amazed Bates, and it still gave him a glimmer of hope. If someone like Anna - strong and intelligent and kind - could believe in him, perhaps someone else would. Some judge somewhere might feel the seed of that belief, and perhaps someday he would be released. Or even paroled, although that would likely only happen when he was a very old man. But still, the thought of parole was something he very much needed. Having no hope for some eventual release was a personal torment, a near daily reminder of everything he had lost in his life: his career, the ability to walk properly, his self respect, and now his freedom.

But Anna... she made everything just a little better. Sometimes the amount that he relied on her presence and looked forward to her visits about his case frightened him. Before, he had likened her to a bird, but she was just as easily a delicate flower, brought in behind the bars surrounding his world and making everything brighter.

"And you don't deserve to torture yourself for something you have no control over," he told her gently. "Some things in life just aren't fair. Some things in life we just have to live with."

She wiped at the moisture which had collected in the corner of her eyes, and Bates looked away so she could compose herself. In a way, she had taken the appeal decision worse than he had, perhaps because she had real hope of a positive outcome whereas he hadn't let himself truly indulge in such beliefs.

Anna shook her head, sadly but with a more definitive hold on her emotions. "I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have reacted like that. This is your life, and I don't want to take away from how you must be feeling."

He had no idea how he felt. Alternating currents of disappointment and numbness ran through him. Only one emotion felt certain. "I'm sorry you're sad," he told her in earnest.

The observation earned him a smile. It was a small smile, barely a hint of movement in her lips pulling together, but her eyes reflected a spectrum of feelings.

Anna's hands lay on the table across from him, and for one moment, he longed to reach out to her, to take her fingers in his own. The pull was almost so strong that he forgot the prohibition against physical contact between inmates and visitors, including legal advisers. He wanted that touch, just a graze of her hand against his, so desperately. But more than just fear of discipline from the guards held him back.

Anna deserved better. She had worked so hard on his appeal, had spent countless nights pouring over his records and researching the law. Taking advantage of her now, even in so small a fashion, was a poor way of rewarding such hard work on his behalf. He was still an inmate, after all, a murder sentenced to die in prison for his wife's murder.

Bates folded his hands into his lap and looked away, ashamed for having even considered reaching out for her.

"I do have one other thing I intend to file," Anna said quietly, her voice betraying that this option had an even greater unlikelihood for success. "I'm still trying to find what I need to prove it will have done some good on your case, but the prosecution failed to tell your trial counsel about a witness the police interviewed during their investigation."

Bates looked up, curious. "Which witness?"

"A woman named Mrs. Bartlett. Apparently she was one of Vera's friends. One of our investigators located her and she mentioned talking to Detective Vyner, but he never mentioned her in his case notes."

Searching his memory, Bates said quietly, "I vaguely remember Vera mentioning her. I think they met shortly before I left London."

"According to Mrs. Bartlett, they were very close. And if she had anything to say which might exonerate you, I could likely get you a new trial on the basis of the police withholding her name."

The way she said it, Anna held out little hope, and he understood why. "But she thinks I killed Vera."

"She does," Anna confirmed. "So it is a dead end unless she tells us something of use to your defense."

* * *

 _"Hello, Anna," he said, his own smile bursting forth as much at the sight of her as his own freedom._

 _"Hello, Mister Bates."_

 _They looked at each other for what felt like hours but was likely only seconds. The implicit connection between them rekindled something deep within him, an ember long buried but carefully tended through his confinement. Suddenly, that ember burst into a flame, and he knew, beyond all doubts._

* * *

Life in prison was not easy for anyone, and it proved particularly difficult for Bates. Fall was turning the weather cold again, and the chilly air did him no favors. His obvious limp and the pain walking without his stick caused turned him into a target early on for the more aggressive inmates. Even though he kept to himself most of the time, there was always someone spoiling for a fight.

Likewise, there were only so many guards to keep an eye out, and some of them willingly turned a blind eye to the abusive nature of certain inmates. Besides, Bates was a wife killer and not a favorite with anyone.

As luck would have it, he was usually able to hide evidence of the attacks when Anna came to visit him about his case. The timing always seemed to work out right, or his clothes would hide the bruises from her eyes. Until one day, she arrived at the prison when he was not expecting her. There was no way to cover the black eye he'd received the day before when he was ambushed in the prison laundry room by two thugs. Nor did the bandages on his hands do anything but highlight how he'd attempted to defend himself.

But he could not refuse to see her, not when she went out of her way to come speak to him at the prison. Besides, after the news about his failed appeal and the latest attack, he was feeling particular low. For the first time in a long time, thoughts of suicide had begun to seriously germinate in his conscious mind as he contemplated a lifetime of his present circumstances.

A few moments with Anna would be like a breath of fresh air to him, a welcome respite from his problems.

"What happened to you?" she demanded on first sight of him, just as he knew she would.

She nearly reached out a hand to touch the ugly purple bruise around his eye, which had swollen nearly shut. But he ducked his head to avoid her hand, instantly wishing he had refused her visit after all.

He answered succinctly, "Prison happened."

Anna pressed her lips together for a few seconds as she regarded him, her mind clearly working through the matter.

"I'll speak to the warden about this."

Shaking his head, he told her, "There is no need."

While his words were few, the tone of his voice conveyed the rest of his message. He did not need Anna to fight this battle for him. Indeed, there was little to be done for it other than to survive. And he would survive, up until the point that he no longer could keep getting out of bed every day.

"You have news?" he prompted her finally, keen to move on from the subject of his own injuries.

She swallowed and blinked back what may have been tears before informing him, "I spoke again with Mrs. Bartlett, and I think I finally have a basis for requesting a new trial. She said that she saw Vera the night she died, but the timeline is all wrong. She said she Vera still alive in the evening, after it was dark. She even mentioned the street lights being on. But you were already on the train by that time."

Bates contemplated her for a moment. "Surely you would need more than that," he said. He could not be excited, not yet, no matter what hope he saw in this woman's eyes.

"It is a start, at least," she told him gently. "And I've also been looking into the investigator in charge of your case, Detective Vyner."

The name was very familiar to him. Vyner had questioned Bates a number of times over Vera's death, never willing to even entertain the possibility that it might have been a suicide.

"He has had several complaints about railroading suspects," Anna said.

"How so?"

"Hiding evidence and ignoring favorable witnesses. The fact that it was him who spoke with Mrs. Bartlett and he never put it in his report will likely work to our benefit when I file my motion with the court."

He forced a smile, as much to reward her eagerness as to reflect any hope he might have. Bates realized in that moment that he really had no hope. It was gone, lost in the dark corners and drafty corridors of this dim place. But he could not deny Anna her moment of enthusiasm, not even if he believed it would all come to naught in the end.

"I appreciate everything you have done for me," he told her. "I cannot thank you enough."

She ducked her head slightly, embarrassed by the praise. "Thank me when I've gotten you released," she said.

* * *

 _"I know you never thought this day would come," Anna said, sounding a touch smug and triumphant. But she was right - he never did think he would be free._

 _"It still seems like a dream."_

 _Except, Bates knew, this was better than a dream. Most of the images which visited his mind at night were terrifying - beasts hunting him and people hurting him. Nightmares. Terrors he could not escape._

 _But this moment was beyond the fantastical elements of any dream. He could see and hear and smell the world around him. And Anna was there, within arms reach, looking at him with such happiness that she could not contain it, and her joy spilled out to encompass him._

 _"It isn't a dream, Mister Bates. You're finally free."_

* * *

He woke up with a start, and his eyes darted from the springs and mattress his cellmate's bed above his head towards the steel door of the room they shared. Some noise had pulled him from sleep, something unusual. Above him, his cellmate Craig continued to sleep, snoring on without concern.

Bates sat up, listening.

The noise grew closer, and suddenly he knew. He knew what it was, and he knew what was happening. The sinking feeling in his stomach expanded, growing wider until it could have swallowed him whole.

He did not fight the guards when they came, just as he knew he could not. Resisting would only land him in administrative confinement at the jail, and that meant he would miss any calls from Anna about the progress of his case.

They said little to him as they entered the cell, two guards Bates was unfamiliar with, but they went about their mission with brisk efficiency.

Unlike the inmates who had jumped him in the laundry room, these men knew not to leave marks on his face. They were professionals, men who were trained to inflict enough bodily damage to take down a man instead of simple pain, and they were very good at their jobs.

In the end, they took him to administrative confinement anyway, on the charge of attacking a guard. It did not matter that there was no evidence. Their word against his was all they needed. Craig would never contradict their side of things, not given his hatred of Bates.

The process of healing would take weeks, and so Bates had no idea how bad it was. They had targeted his bad leg, and the way his limp grew worse, he worried that the old injury had just been made that much worse. The rest of the bruises would fade in time, just like the skin around his black eye had turned a sickly green and then yellow before fading altogether.

But the damage to Bates' soul was like the re-injury to his leg. The days spent alone in confinement, away from anyone else, away from even his letters and legal work, were perhaps the longest of his life. He had nothing but his own pain and thoughts to keep him company, and Bates focused on what he already knew: he hated his own company. He hated himself. He hated his life and everything he had ever done.

He had not killed Vera, he knew. But perhaps he had driven her to suicide? Perhaps he did belong in prison for her death, even if not for the reasons Vyner had accused him.

Perhaps it was lucky they did not allow him anything in his cell. A blanket might have been a thin protection against the cold, but he could equally contemplate using it as a noose. Had he found even a stray piece of metal or glass, he might have ended it all.

Too many days and a full eternity later, a guard opened the door. He had no idea how much time had passed or even what day it was. It might not even still be December. A new year could have begun for all he knew.

"What's going on?" Bates asked the guard.

"Get up," the man said gruffly.

He tried to stand, and as he did, his leg felt stronger under him than he would have imagined. Perhaps the rest had done it some good. But rather than grab him and push him out the door, the guard waited patiently. There was something different about his demeanor, something Bates noticed but could not place.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Phone cal from your lawyer. Seems you're bein' released."

* * *

 _So much of what had occurred over the past few days was a blur in his mind. Anna had filed her motion with the courts while he was in confinement, arguing that Vyner had deliberately withheld Mrs. Bartlett as a witness favorable to his side. Had the woman testified, it was entirely possible the jury might have acquitted him given the wrench she'd thrown into the prosecution's theory of when he had killed Vera._

 _Due to the nature of Mrs. Bartlett's testimony, Anna had only won him a new trial, not total exoneration. And the prosecution would likely put him through the ringer again. But, at the same time, their lead detective in the case was now under investigation for hiding evidence. Bates' case was not the only one. They might yet drop the matter altogether given the nature of Vera's death, Anna had told him. Only time would tell._

 _And in the mean time, he was free._

 _"All because of you," he told her._

 _She beamed at him, as happy for him as he could be for himself._

 _"I'm just glad to know that an innocent man is finally seeing justice."_

 _Anna spoke hesitantly, almost nervously, as though she wanted to say more but could not. And indeed, Bates wondered about the ethical implications of a lawyer having a relationship with a client. But just as swiftly, he pushed the thought away. Anna would have no wish for such a thing, not with him. He chastised himself for even contemplating such a thing._

 _"I really don't know how I can ever repay you," he told her sincerely._

 _He held out his hand to shake hers, and she paused for a second before reaching out as well. The moment was not one to be taken lightly, not by either of them. Despite the cold weather, Anna was not wearing gloves. As their bare fingers finally grazed each other, and he felt her hand warm and soft in his, Bates sighed._

 _It was the first time he had ever touched Anna Smith._

 _The electricity he anticipated between them did not disappoint. Just the feel of her skin against his set off something deep within him, long dormant emotions and thoughts. Her touch washed away sins like holy water. It opened up his world again and left him breathless with anticipation. As though the heavens had been waiting for precisely that moment, gentle white snowflakes began to drift silently down around them._

 _"Happy Christmas, Mister Bates," Anna said with a shy smile._

 _He had forgotten all about the day, to be honest. But the way she said the words, and the nearly magical setting around them, Bates now had his own reasons to believe in miracles._

 _"Happy Christmas, Anna."_

* * *

fin


End file.
